Media plan:
Rick Davis of Davis/Dixon Media. He makes TV and radio political ads. These are all from those C-span seminars that I taped over New Year's Day. How to manage the press, in addition to paid media (ads)? Politics rewards the energetic. Often work 16 hour days. No day is the same. Make a difference, even on a bad day. Many women of campaign staffs today, and they have influence. Earned Media's role in your campaign. How the Press Covers Campaigns. Process coverage vs. message delivery Campaigns generate impressions with voters. Elements of a press plan. Communication tips with the press. (develop mutual respect) Courtroom analogy. The campaign staff is the trial lawyer. The incumbent is the defendant. The plaintiff is the challenger. The voters are the jury. The campaign teams are the lawyers. The media is the judge. Media as Judge. What evidence will be seen? Sustains/dismisses objections. They issue instructions to the jury through editorials and endorsements. What do campaigns want from the press? To deliver YOUR message. To show fundraising and momentum. To give you their endorsement. Also positive coverage, name recognition, to raise visibility, to set the context for the election. Papers have news and editorial depts. You need a strategy for both. The press corps is out of your control, but you try every day to spin them. Campaigns are like herding cats. Campaigns are organized chaos. Today's press is obsessed with the process of running for office. The horse race itself, polling, fundraising reports, strategy, mistakes, character flaws, attack and counterattack dialogue. Not much coverage of the issues, though. Most headlines aren't about the issues. Candidate profiles are superficial. Press covers the campaign like a sporting event. Campaigns vs. the press. How do you penetrate this process coverage with something resembling your message? Persuadable voters aren't following the campaign news very closely. They are guided by vague impressions. In focus groups, everyone knows that Ben and J-Lo split up, but no one knows who is running for senate. You can't change the voter's priorities. The persuadable voters are busy people with little time for politics. Don't treat them like they are stupid, treat them like they are busy. All marketers and celebrities try to get a little piece of your brain every day. Voters care about things like schools, jobs, taxes, clean water. Tangible things. Keep your expectations in check. Press covers politics like sports. James Carville's Neil ARmstrong theory of press coverage. Candidate A says moon is a rock. Candidate B says moon is green cheese. Daily headline says "candidates trade charges about the moon." Then Candidate A gets Neil Armstrong to issue a press release saying that he has been to the moon and it is actually a rock. Candidate B gets a Harvard professor to say that much evidence shows that the moon could be made of green cheese. Next day's headline says, "Candidate's experts trade charges about the moon." You usually can't get the press that you want. But you have to try. Advice- spend a lot of time planning your announcement to run. Swing voters won't care, but the media will give your announcement to run a clear shot. You get to say who you are, why you are running, and what you will do when elected. Announcement tours are a good idea. Use these to set the context for your campaign. Develop a good announcement plan and time line. Do it in different towns. You will get to say more. Develop a clip file to give to the press. Which sounds better? John Kerry, decorated war hero, did something today. Or John Kerry, who is having his worst fundraising quarter yet, did something today. Define what they say 'between the commas'. Usually one issue or characteristic gets attached to your candidacy. If something appears three times in the press, then it might as well be true. Between the commas, Nixon will always be 'forced to resign'. Reporters will check your web site. Make it look good, but d on't make it a one stop shopping place for opposition research. Put your position papers on the web site. Also do a Pre-Announcement story. Candidate encouraged by polls. Candidate picks campaign team. Candidate raises lots of funds early. Candidate mulls bid. Party urges X to run. But don't overshadow your actual announcement. Have an announcement timeline which may not end on announcement day. Make announcement in every major town. Hillary did a "listening tour' in upstate NY. She countered the notion that she would come in and impose her will upon New Yorkers. The tour showed that she was running for the right reasons. Showed she was earnestly learning about the state. Showed that she actively sought input from New Yorkers. Then she announced at Daniel Moynahan's farm. Send press releases to media. Also put them on your web site. Sometimes smaller papers and radio stations will use them almost verbatim. It's hard to get a headline in a major paper with just a press release. Momentum press releases. Fundraising is up. Full slate of candidates. Hired a new campaign manager. Got an endorsement. Opened campaign headquarters. But you also need issues press releases. If you want to be known as the 'jobs candidate', your press releases should be about jobs. Challengers want to mix it up with the incumbent early. The challenger uses press releases to get the incumbent on the defensive. Incumbents aren't looking to engage the challenger early in the campaign. If incumbent is making tons of fundraising calls, he isn't available to the press for a while. So fix up the web site, write some op-ed pieces. Polish up the speeches, make use of downtime. The % of time the candidate spends with the media increases toward Election Day. Early on, much fundraising calls and no time for the press. Later on, candidate is with the press all the time. State Education Secretary runs for Senate. Has some name recognition. Use press plan to broaden her profile so that voters will send her to Washington DC. Get a story out about how whe cut costs in the education dept by 19% when she was Secretary. This makes her seem fiscally responsible enough to be sent to DC. She reduced operating budget by 19%. They told this over and over throughout the campaign to reassure voters that she was a fiscally-responsible Democrat. The 19% reduction was the fact that they wanted everyone in the state to know. Her opponent increased his budget by 10% so there was a useful contrast. They rode this all the way to election day. Control the early definition of your candidate by the press. Victory can depend upon this. Governors, Mayors and Presidents are executive officers. They get more press coverage than Senate, House does. Issues matter as a demonstration of your character and personality. Generate as many positive impressions as you can with the target voters. Construct a message box: What you say about yourself. What you say about your opponent. What your opponent says about you. What your opponent says about him/herself. Have a response for each part of the box. Some impressions are simple, but they add up. Seeing a yard sign. Conversation with friends. Eight seconds on the news. Impressions generated by the press should ideally reinforce your paid media (ads). If they don't the voters may get a cross-impression and not vote for you. So be proactive. You can't run as a fiscally responsible candidate while raising taxes. This causes cross impressions with voters. Make sure the impressions dovetail and reinforce each other. Plot the moments in your campaign that will get press coverage on a time line. Debates on TV. Financial reports to FEC. Announcement to run. Your opponent's announcement (you could rebut his message). Then break this calendar into manageable units of time (one month). Time is a scarce resource. Make every day count. The challenger needs to raise money and to mix it up early with the incumbent. Challenger isn't well known. He attacks the incumbent. The incumbent gets a spokesperson to refute the claims. This way, the challenger isn't elevated to the level of the incumbent. Undecideds get info from TV ads a lot in senate races. The press will analyze your ads because this makes for good TV. When you write a speech, talking points or press release: Write it. Let it sit overnight. Get input from others. Then rewrite it. Also read out loud what you have written. Campaigns deal with the spoken word. Some language sounds 'klunky' when spoken so change it. Last three weeks of campaign. Debates, ad wars, a profile piece on TV. Much media in late October. Plan your announcement. What is the setting? What is the message? The Backdrop should reinforce the message. Understand what the press wants and needs in a story, and supply it. If they want conflict, criticize the opponent's tax plan. Tip- go to a newsroom and to a TV station and see how they operate. Get to know them. See the daily mania and split second decisions. Arnold dropped a wrecking ball on a car to show how he will demolish the car tax. Rules of the road. 1. invent in relationships with reporters. 2. Meet deadlines, ask when they are. 3. Return calls promptly 4. Get info from the reporter before you start talking. Gather your thoughts and call them back. 5. Be firm if necessary, but polite. 6. Say 'I don't know'. Don't make stuff up on the spot. Call them back. 7. Never lie to the press. You may spin, reframe, ignore a question or change the subject, but don't lie. the end. It isn't a plan if it is not written down. Look at the state's media markets. Ask them, "How does your paper cover Senate campaigns?" Every state's press corps has a different ethos. Your press plan must support your voter targeting plan. You might want to visit a city with lots of undecideds. Find a similar race from a few years ago. See how it was covered. How many process, issues stories? Look into secondary and stealth media. Weekly papers. Pgh city paper, homeowner's assoc newsletter, radio, Spanish language newspaper. Weekly and specialty papers often sit around the house for over a week, so better chance of being read at some point by undecideds. Go to homeowner's association. Make a speech. Ask for a donation. Ask for a guest column in their newsletter. Make impressions where you can.